


Morals can shift, and so can Society

by Lairnres



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Magic-inhibiting collars, Slavery, Slow Burn, Violence, monster racism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-18 12:41:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11290947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lairnres/pseuds/Lairnres
Summary: You are a young woman making your living as a freelance programmer, meaning you can work at home. Which is pretty sensible, considering you live in a rural area roughly two hours away from the next city.---summary will follow---





	Morals can shift, and so can Society

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Monsters in this fanfiction don't look precisely like their canon counterparts. With sizes usually ranging from 2 to 3 meters, they are much bigger and their body shapes represent humans much less than in the game. Sans for example has a skull similar to a canine with three horns, spines of varying length at the back of his vertebraes that he can raise at will and are usually put flat against his spine which makes them barely visible, retractable claws and a long tail. (I might end up drawing him somewhere in the future, so he becomes easier for you to imagine. If you need some visuals now, you can consider his appearance similar to gaster blaster sans.)

It's the year 20XX, 10 years after the monsters emerged from Mt. Ebott.

At first people were scared because of their size and often terrifying appearance, so monsters were restricted to certain areas around the mountain they came from. The monsters didn't object because they did not want a new war to start and thought that it would probably only take a few years for humans to get accustomed to the idea of monsters and slowly accept them into society. 

Things did not turn out that way, though. After humans began doing tests about the new form of energy all monsters possessed, which quickly got named "magic" because of the unbelievable things that could be done with it, it did not take long until people began to notice the possibilities that came with the diverse magical abilities of the new species. New possibilities lead to new ideas, new ideas lead to successful companies and successful companies lead to to the prospect of money. The prospect of money was exactly where morals began to crumble. 

Scientist developed collars that could inhibit magic usage of the wearer, delivering electric shocks of varying strength either on command with a special kind of remote to sustain obedience or when the monster tried to use magic despite the collars magic inhibition feature being activated. These collars weren't invented overnight though, it took nearly two years for them to be finished and that was more time than the monsters needed to notice what was happening. 

It all began when the tests started to go into a slightly different direction than before, questions and experiments aimed to determine how and why the flow of magic could be interrupted. Monsters quickly became suspicious and demanded to know what was going on. Scientist began making up random excuses for all kinds of tests or simply gave the explanation of "Well, it's always better to know more, isn't it?". The Monsters became uncomfortable with the new situation and slowly animosity began to spread between them and the humans, arguments becoming more and more common. When a monster managed to find earlier drafts of the collar, which were carelessly discarded in a bin, all hell broke loose. 

Some monsters immediately fled, some attacked. Despite their size and ability to use magic, they were soon overpowered by the weapons and higher numbers of the military. It was a hard earned victory though, since large numbers of both humans and monsters were killed. However, what was a sad day for all friends or family members of the deceased humans played right into the hands of certain government members and business owners. Monsters beginning this cruel fight served as a perfect justification for treating monsters as beasts, pictures of gruesomely mutilated bodies were shown in all newspapers and hundreds of articles about monsters were published, promoting their image as mindless, violent creatures. This made sure that all of the surviving attackers and fleeing monsters, that specialized military units managed to find near the areas they inhabited before, were locked into safe confinement cells until the collars were finished.

When they were, life for monsters continued to go downhill. Companies all over the world were interested in getting their hands on certain monsters because of their unique abilities. Deliberately modifying the flow of electricity, affecting plant growth, purifying water, being able to detect certain substances hundreds of meters under the ground...and the list goes on. Even those monsters whose magic wasn't especially useful for humans were highly sought-after for doing tests to gain a better understand of magic as a whole or wanted as an expensive and exotic pet. And oh boy, expensive they were. Depending on their magic capabilities and general condition, one was usually worth around 500,000 to 1 million dollars. That's a lot of money, so it was no wonder people spent a huge amount of effort trying to find and catch the remaining monsters that decided to flee before the battle and managed to not get caught. Since there weren't that many monsters to begin with and most of them either died in the fight or were caught afterwards, it is estimated that only around 200 monsters remain free, hiding somewhere in the wild.

In your opinion, it would be best if they will never be found. You have never seen one before and don't know much about them, but you do know that they are at just as sentient and intelligent as humans from early reports in the news and feel like they should be treated as such. Of course they would attack if they found out that humans were planning to find a way to suppress their most powerful ability. Sure, they could still easily overpower a human with their physical strength in an one on one fight, but that was rarely the case. Usually there are lots of humans, and they have weapons. When it comes to armed humans, monsters wouldn't stand a chance without magic. So yeah, they felt threatened and attacked, everyone should be able to understand that. Even though many people don't, apparently......Or maybe they do, maybe the attack wasn't the reason why so many are okay with treating monsters so badly. Maybe it's just because of them being too different. Humans are tribe animals after all, everyone that is not included in their group is a potential threat, an enemy. This is a fact that has been shown countless times in history. Over and over again, people fought against each other because of being a different race, living in a different country or having a different belief. There was no personal quarrel, no real reason for them to kill, but they still did, and all it took was a leader to convince the others of being to different. 

In the case of monsters, a leader to do that wasn't even needed, the appearance was enough. They were big, scary, and most important of all: looked nothing like humans most of the time. And something that looks like it came straight out of a horror movie surely can't deserve a place in society, right? That seems to be what many people are thinking, at least subconsciously, that something that looks like a true _monster_ can't be deserving of the same compassion that humans require. 

Hmm...monster...that get's you thinking, did they introduce themselves as monsters or is it just what the media decided to call them? But human psychology and names of species probably isn't what you should be thinking about right now, how did your thought process begin again? Oh well, it doesn't really matter. Tonight the sky is much clearer than usual and that is the reason you spent the last hour carrying your telescope, a blanket and a small bag of supplies for a midnight snack halfway up the mountain. With how busy life has been recently you really wanted something to unwind and stargazing is the perfect thing to do that. It's been a while since you last had the chance to spend a night lying in the middle of nature, observing constellations and all kinds of phenomena that can be seen in the night sky. You really wanted to start doing it more often in the future, it's an extremely relaxing habit. 

When you were a child you spent tons of time reading about astronomy, going out into nature to observe with the telescope you got for your tenth birthday and talking about it all with you brother. When he moved away to the city to start working as an accountant you somehow slowly started doing all of that less and less often. Maybe you just need somebody who you can nerd out with again, so it would be a good idea to call your brother soon and ask him if he has time to come over sometimes to watch the stars together. 

Right now you don't mind being alone too much though, the sunset has just begun and the birds are still quietly chirping all around you. With the added sound of rushing water of the river nearby, it gives off a really strong feeling of serenity. You decide to sit down on a smooth rock and just enjoy nature for a few minutes, walking that far with all your stuff is really exhausting after all. Besides, it's not even dark yet and you only need to walk another fifteen minutes at most until you arrive at the clearings deeper in the forest. You always liked spending your time there because of the calming surroundings and the great view on the night sky. 

After the break on the rock and a few minutes of walking, you are beginning to get near your destination. The sun is gone now and it's almost completely quiet. You look up and already manage to spot a few stars glinting through the roof of leaves above you. Soon you see familiar structures before you and begin walking faster. After roughly another minute of walking over forest ground and occasionally tripping over a root that was barely visible in the dark, you finally reach the clearing. Stepping into the moonlight, you see something you didn't expect though. Huh, maybe you would end up with company after all? 

In front of you, right in the middle of the clearing, was a large blue blanket with a nice looking telescope positioned on it. You could also see some bags and smaller objects littered across the fluffy surface. You couldn't see anyone in your vicinity yet, so you laid down your own blanket right next to the blue one and began to set up your own telescope. 

After you were finished, you decided to inspect the stuff on your neighboring blanket. There seemed to be maps of the night sky, dates of solar eclipses and papers containing similar information pocking out of most of the bags. It would be rude to look through the closed ones, so you let those be. In a corner of the blanket, you see a sandwich in a plastic bag and a few bottles of ketchup placed next to it. Geez, how could someone need so much ketchup? Was there a barbecue party planned here and whoever set up this blanket brought the condiments? You hoped not, because you weren't keen on disturbing the plans of a group of friends and changing location didn't seem that appealing either. 

A small object lying near the bags seemed to be some kind of USB flash drive. Odd, why would somebody take that out here? Maybe some information about astronomy was saved on there and whoever brought this also carried a laptop. Anyways, it probably shouldn't be lying out here in the open where a particularly strong gust of wind could blow it away or a small drop of rain could ruin it completely. You were just about to stuff it into one of the bags with the maps in it when you heard the rustling of leaves near you. You quickly looked towards the sounds and began to greet them.

"Oh hey! Are y-" The words got stuck in your throat. Right there, not even five meters away from you, stood some kind of creature you've never seen before. Frozen halfway through emerging from the bushes, it looked at you with a panicked expression, deep black eye sockets staring back at you. Before you could take in more of its features or even begin contemplating what to do, you see a bright flash of light blue light and suddenly gravity seemed to turn by ninety degrees.

The last thing you remember is your back harshly colliding with the bark of a tree.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction, I hope you all enjoy it! ^^  
> If something isn't explained clearly enough or you notice anything else about the story that bothers you, feel free to comment. I'm always open for constructive criticism~


End file.
